TAXES/TREASURY/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP BUSINESS: “Shrugging off the limitations of the partial government shutdown, the Trump administration finalized rules on Friday [1-18-19] governing who can claim a new 20 percent tax deduction for business owners. Officials said the rules would allow millions of businesses to file their 2018 taxes with certainty over whether they qualify for the break. The deduction for so-called pass-through businesses was a central feature of the sweeping tax-cut legislation that President Trump signed at the end of 2017. The vast majority of American small businesses are organized as pass-throughs, whose profits are divided up among owners and taxed as individual income. Many financial firms and real estate companies — including hundreds that are under the umbrella of the Trump Organization — are also set up as pass-throughs. The regulation includes several changes from a proposal the Treasury Department issued in August. It now allows certain mutual-fund holders to benefit from the deduction if they have holdings in a real estate trust. It also provides far greater detail on the type of service businesses that are excluded from claiming the deduction above a certain income threshold.”
–Jim Tankersley, “Trump Administration Spells Out Who Wins and Loses From New Tax Break,” The New York Times online, January 18, 2019